
Glass' 



Book 



ON BEING HUMAN 



Books by 
WOODROW WILSON 

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
Profusely illustrated. 5 volumes. Svo 
C'.zrh 

Three-quarter Calf 
Three-quarter Levant 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, rjustrated. 8vo 
Popular Edition 

WHEN A MAN COMES TO HIMSELF. 
16mo. Cloth. Leather 

ON BEING HUMAN 

16mo. Cloth. Leather 



HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 



ON 
BEING HUMAN 

WOODROW WILSON 

Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D. 
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 




HARPER & BROTHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

M • C • M • X • V I 






From the Atlantic Monthly 
Copyright, 1897, by Houghton Mifflin & Co. 



?0S 



Printed in the United States of America 
Published April, 1916 
c-Q 



ON BEING HUMAN 



ON BEING HUMAN 



THE rarest sort of a book," says 
Mr. Bagehot, slyly, is "a book 
to read"; and "the knack in style is 
to write like a human being." It is 
painfully evident, upon experiment, 
that not many of the books which 
come teeming from our presses every 
year are meant to be read. They are 
meant, it may be, to be pondered; it is 
hoped, no doubt, they may instruct, 
or inform, or startle, or arouse, or re- 
form, or provoke, or amuse us; but 
we read, if we have the true reader's 
[i] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

zest and palate, not to grow more 
knowing, but to be less pent up and 
bound within a little circle, — as those 
who take their pleasure, and not as 
those who laboriously seek instruc- 
tion, — as a means of seeing and 
enjoying the world of men and af- 
fairs. We wish companionship and 
renewal of spirit, enrichment of 
thought and the full adventure of 
the mind; and we desire fair com- 
pany, and a large world in which to 
find them. 

No one who loves the masters 
who may be communed with and 
read but must see, therefore, and 
resent the error of making the text 
of any one of them a source to draw 
grammar from, forcing the parts of 
speech to stand out stark and cold 
from the warm text; or a store of 

[21 



ON BEING HUMAN 

samples whence to draw rhetorical 
instances, setting up figures of speech 
singly and without support of any- 
neighbor phrase, to be stared at 
curiously and with intent to copy 
or dissect! Here is grammar done 
without deliberation: the phrases 
carry their meaning simply and by a 
sort of limpid reflection; the thought 
is a living thing, not an image in- 
geniously contrived and wrought. 
Pray leave the text whole: it has no 
meaning piecemeal; at any rate, not 
that best, wholesome meaning, as of 
a frank and genial friend who talks, 
not for himself or for his phrase, 
but for you. It is questionable 
morals to dismember a living frame 
to seek for its obscure fountains of 
life! 

When you say that a book was 

[3] 



OX BEING HOIAX 

meant to be read, you mean, for one 
thing, of course, that it was not 
meant to be studied. You do not 
study a good story, or a haunting 
poem, or a battle song, or a love 
ballad, or any moving narrative, 
whether it be out of history or out 
of fiction — nor any argument, even, 
that moves vital in the field of ac- 
tion. You do not have to study 
these things; they reveal them- 
selves, you do not stay to see how. 
They remain with you, and will not 
be forgotten or laid by. They cling 
like a personal experience, and be- 
come the mind's intimates. You 
devour a book meant to be read, not 
because you would fill yourself or 
have an anxious care to be nourished, 
but because it contains such stuff as 
it makes the mind hungry to look 



ON BEING HUMAN 

upon. Neither do you read it to kill 
time, but to lengthen time, rather, 
adding to it its natural usury by 
living the more abundantly while 
it lasts, joining another's life and 
thought to your own. 

There are a few children in every 
generation, as Mr. Bagehot reminds 
us, who think the natural thing to 
do with any book is to read it. 
"There is an argument from design 
in the subject," as he says; "if the 
book was not meant for that pur- 
pose, for what purpose was it 
meant?" These are the young eyes 
to which books yield up a great 
treasure, almost in spite of them- 
selves, as if they had been pene- 
trated by some swift, enlarging pow- 
er of vision which only the young 
know. It is these youngsters to 

[5] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

whom books give up the long ages of 
history, "the wonderful series going 
back to the times of old patriarchs 
with their flocks and herds" — I am 
quoting Mr. Bagehot again — "the 
keen-eyed Greek, the stately Roman, 
the watching Jew, the uncouth Goth, 
the horrid Hun, the settled picture 
of the unchanging East, the restless 
shifting of the rapid West, the rise 
of the cold and classical civilization, 
its fall, the rough impetuous Middle 
Ages, the vague warm picture of our- 
selves and home. When did we 
learn these? Not yesterday nor to- 
day, but long ago, in the first dawn 
of reason, in the original flow of 
fancy." Books will not yield to us 
so richly when we are older. The 
argument from design fails. We re- 
turn to the staid authors we read 

[61 



ON BEING HUMAN 

long ago, and do not find in them the 
vital, speaking images that used to 
lie there upon the page. Our own 
fancy is gone, and the author never 
had any. We are driven in upon 
the books meant to be read. 

These are books written by human 
beings, indeed, but with no general 
quality belonging to the kind — with 
a special tone and temper, rather, a 
spirit out of the common, touched 
with a light that shines clear out of 
some great source of light which 
not every man can uncover. We call 
this spirit human because it moves 
us, quickens a like life in ourselves, 
makes us glow with a sort of ardor of 
self -discovery. It touches the springs 
of fancy or of action within us, and 
makes our own life seem more quick 
and vital. We do not call every book 

[7] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

that moves us human. Some seem 
written with knowledge of the black 
art, set our base passions aflame, dis- 
close motives at which we shudder — 
the more because we feel their reality 
and power; and we know that this 
is of the devil, and not the fruitage 
of any quality that distinguishes us 
as men. We are distinguished as 
men by the qualities that mark us 
different from the beasts. When we 
call a thing human we have a spirit- 
ual ideal in mind. It may not be an 
ideal of that which is perfect, but it 
moves at least upon an upland level 
where the air is sweet; it holds an 
image of man erect and constant, 
going abroad with undaunted steps, 
looking with frank and open gaze 
upon all the fortunes of his day, feel- 
ing ever and again — 

[8] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

"the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, ^ 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things." 

Say what we may of the errors and 
the degrading sins of our kind, we do 
not willingly make what is worst in 
us the distinguishing trait of what is 
human. When we declare, with 
Bagehot, that the author whom we 
love writes like a human being, we 
are not sneering at him; we do not 
say it with a leer. It is in token of 
admiration, rather. He makes us 
like our humankind. There is a noble 
passion in what he says, a wholesome 
humor that echoes genial comrade- 

[9] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

ships; a certain reasonableness and 
moderation in what is thought and 
said; an air of the open day, in which 
things are seen whole and in their 
right colors, rather than of the close 
study or the academic class-room. 
We do not want our poetry from 
grammarians, nor our tales from phi- 
lologists, nor our history from theo- 
rists. Their human nature is subtly 
transmuted into something less broad 
and catholic and of the general world. 
Neither do we want our political 
economy from tradesmen nor our 
statesmanship from mere politicians, 
but from those who see more and 
care for more than these men see or 
care for. 



II 

ONCE — it is a thought which 
troubles us — once it was a 
simple enough matter to be a human 
being, but now it is deeply difficult; 
because life was once simple, but is 
now complex, confused, multifarious. 
Haste, anxiety, preoccupation, the 
need to specialize and make machines 
of ourselves, have transformed the 
once simple world, and we are ap- 
prised that it will not be without ef- 
fort that we shall keep the broad 
human traits which have so far made 
the earth habitable. We have seen 
our modern life accumulate, hot and 

2 [11] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

restless, in great cities — and we can- 
not say that the change is not nat- 
ural: we see in it, on the contrary, 
the fulfilment of an inevitable law 
of change, which is no doubt a law 
of growth, and not of decay. And 
yet we look upon the portentous 
thing with a great distaste, and doubt 
with what altered passions we shall 
come out of it. The huge, rushing, 
aggregate life of a great city — the 
crushing crowds in the streets, where 
friends seldom meet and there are 
few greetings; the thunderous noise 
of trade and industry that speaks of 
nothing but gain and competition, 
and a consuming fever that checks 
the natural courses of the kindly 
blood; no leisure anywhere, no quiet, 
no restful ease, no wise repose — all 
this shocks us. It is inhumane. It 

[12] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

does not seem human. How much 
more likely does it appear that we 
shall find men sane and human about 
a country fireside, upon the streets 
of quiet villages, where all are neigh- 
bors, where groups of friends gather 
easily, and a constant sympathy 
makes the very air seem native! 
Why should not the city seem infi- 
nitely more human than the hamlet? 
Why should not human traits the 
more abound where human beings 
teem millions strong? 

Because the city curtails man of 
his wholeness, specializes him, quick- 
ens some powers, stunts others, gives 
him a sharp edge, and a temper like 
that of steel, makes him unfit for 
nothing so much as to sit still. Men 
have indeed written like human be- 
ings in the midst of great cities, but 

[13] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

not often when they have shared the 
city's characteristic life, its struggle 
for place and for gain. There are not 
many places that belong to a city's 
life to which you can "invite your 
soul." Its haste, its preoccupations, 
its anxieties, its rushing noise as of 
men driven, its ringing cries, distract 
you. It offers no quiet for reflection; 
it permits no retirement to any who 
/ share its life. It is a place of little 
tasks, of narrowed functions, of ag- 
gregate and not of individual 
strength. The great machine dom- 
inates its little parts, and its Soci- 
ety is as much of a machine as its 
business. 

"This tract which the river of Time 
Now flows through with us, is the plain. 
Gone is the calm of its earlier shore. 
Border'd by cities, and hoarse 
[14] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

With a thousand cries is its stream. 
And we on its breasts, our minds 
Are confused as the cries which we hear, 
Changing and shot as the sights which we see. 

"And we say that repose has fled 
Forever the course of the river of Time, 
That cities will crowd to its edge 
In a blacker, incessanter line; 
That the din will be more on its banks, 
Denser the trade on its stream, 
Flatter the plain where it flows, 
Fiercer the sun overhead, 
That never will those on its breast 
See an ennobling sight, 
Drink of the feeling of quiet again. 

"But what was before us we know not, 
And we know not what shall succeed. 

"Haply, the river of Time — 
As it grows, as the towns on its marge 
Fling their wavering lights 
On a wider, statelier stream — 
[15] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

May acquire, if not the calm 
Of its early mountainous shore, 
Yet a solemn peace of its own. 

"And the width of the waters, the hush 
Of the gray expanse where he floats, 
Freshening its current and spotted with foam 
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike 
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast — 
As the pale waste widens around him, 
As the banks fade dimmer away, 
As the stars come out, and the night-wind 
Brings up the stream 
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea." 

We cannot easily see the large 
measure and abiding purpose of the^ 
novel age in which we stand young 
and confused. The view that shall 
clear our minds and quicken us to 
act as those who know their task and 
its distant consummation will come 
with better knowledge and completer 

[16] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

self-possession. It shall not be a 
night-wind, but an air that shall 
blow out of the widening east and 
with the coming of the light, that 
shall bring us, with the morning, 
"murmurs and scents of the infinite 
sea." Who can doubt that man has 
grown more and more human with 
each step of that slow process which 
has brought him knowledge, self- 
restraint, the arts of intercourse, and 
the revelations of real joy? Man 
has more and more lived with his 
fellow -men, and it is society that has 
humanized him — the development of 
society into an infinitely various 
school of discipline and ordered skill. 
He has been made more human by 
schooling, by growing more self- 
possessed — less violent, less tumul- 
tuous; holding himself in hand, and 

[17] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

moving always with a certain poise 
of spirit; not forever clapping his 
hand to the hilt of his sword, but 
preferring, rather, to play with a 
subtler skill upon the springs of 
action. This is our conception of 
the truly human man: a man in 
whom there is a just balance of 
faculties, a catholic sympathy — no 
brawler, no fanatic, no pharisee; not 
too credulous in hope, not too des- 
perate in purpose; warm, but not 
hasty; ardent, and full of definite 
J power, but not running about to be 
pleased and deceived by every new 
thing. 

It is a genial image, of men we 
love — an image of men warm and 
true of heart, direct and unhesitat- 
ing in courage, generous, magnani- 
mous, faithful, steadfast, capable of 

[18] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

a deep devotion and self-forgetful- 
ness. But the age changes, and with 
it must change our ideals of human 
quality. Not that we would give up 
what we have loved: we would add 
what a new life demands. In a new 
age men must acquire a new capacity, 
must be men upon a new scale, and 
with added qualities. We shall need 
a new Renaissance, ushered in by a 
new "humanistic" movement, in 
which we shall add to our present 
minute, introspective study of our- 
selves, our jails, our slums, our nerve- 
centers, our shifts to live, almost as 
morbid as mediaeval religion, a re- 
discovery of the round world, and of 
man's place in it, now that its face 
has changed. We study the world, 
but not yet with intent to school our 
hearts and tastes, broaden our na- 

[19] 



/ 



ON BEING HUMAN 

tures, and know our fellow -men as 
comrades rather than as phenomena; 
with purpose, rather, to build up 
bodies of critical doctrine and pro- 
vide ourselves with theses. That, 
surely, is not the truly humanizing 
way in which to take the air of the 
world. Man is much more than a 
"rational being," and lives more by 
sympathies and impressions than by 
conclusions. It darkens his eyes and 
dries up the wells of his humanity to 
be forever in search of doctrine. We 
need wholesome, experiencing na- 
tures, I dare affirm, much more than 
we need sound reasoning. 



Ill 

TAKE life in the large view, and 
we are most reasonable when 
we seek that which is most whole- 
some and tonic for our natures as a 
whole; and we know, when we put 
aside pedantry, that the great middle 
object in life — the object that lies 
between religion on the one hand, 
and food and clothing on the other, 
establishing our average levels of 
achievement — the excellent golden 



be human beings in all the wide and 
genial meaning of the term. Does 
the age hinder? Do its mazy inter- 

[21] 



mean, is, not to be learned, but to 



OX BEING HUMAN 

ests distract us when we would plan 
our discipline, determine our duty, 
clarify our ideals? It is the more 
necessary that we should ask our- 
selves what it is that is demanded of 
us, if we would fit our qualities to 
meet the new tests. Let us remind 
ourselves that to be human is, for 
one thing, to speak and act with a 
certain note of genuineness, a qual- 
ity mixed of spontaneity and intel- 
ligence. This is necessary for whole- 
some life in any age, but particularly 
amidst confused affairs and shifting 
standards. Genuineness is not mere 
simplicity, for that may lack vitality, 
and genuineness does not. We ex- 
pect what we call genuine to have 
pith and strength of fiber. Gen- 
uineness is a quality which we some- 
times mean to include when we speak 
[«] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

of individuality. Individuality is 
lost the moment you submit to pass- 
ing modes or fashions, the creations 
of an artificial society; and so is 
genuineness. No man is genuine 
who is forever trying to pattern his 
life after the lives of other people — 
unless, indeed, he be a genuine dolt. 
But individuality is by no means the 
same as genuineness; for individ- 
uality may be associated with the 
most extreme and even ridiculous 
eccentricity, while genuineness we 
conceive to be always wholesome, 
balanced, and touched with dignity. 
It is a quality that goes with good.; 
sense and self-respect. It is a sort 
of robust moral sanity, mixed of el- 
ements both moral and intellectual. 
It is found in natures too strong to 
be mere trimmers and conformers, 

[23] 



OX BEING HUMAN 

too well poised and thoughtful to 
fling off into intemperate protest and 
revolt. Laughter is genuine which 
has in it neither the shrill, hysterical 
note of mere excitement nor the hard, 
metallic twang of the cynic's sneer — 
which rings in the honest voice of 
gracious good humor, which is inno- 
cent and unsatirical. Speech is gen- 
uine which is without silliness, affec- 
tation, or pretense. That character 
is genuine which seems built by na- 
ture rather than by convention, 
which is stuff of independence and 
of good courage. Nothing spurious, 
bastard, begotten out of true wed- 
lock of the mind; nothing adulter- 
ated and seeming to be what it is 
not; nothing unreal, can ever get 
place among the nobility of things 
genuine, natural, of pure stock and 

[24] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

unmistakable lineage. It is a pre- 
rogative of every truly human being 
to come out from the low estate of 
those who are merely gregarious and 
of the herd, and show his innate 
powers cultivated and yet unspoiled 
— sound, unmixed, free from imita- 
tion; showing that individualization 
without extravagance which is genu- 
ineness. 

But how? By what means is this 
self-liberation to be effected — this 
emancipation from affectation and 
the bondage of being like other peo- 
ple? Is it open to us to choose to be 
genuine? I see nothing insuperable 
in the way, except for those who are 
hopelessly lacking in a sense of hu- 
mor. It depends upon the range 
and scale of your observation wheth- 
er you can strike the balance of 

[25] 



OX BEING HUMAN' 

genuineness or not. If you live in a 
small and petty world, you will be 
subject to its standards; but if you 
live in a large world, you will see 
that standards are innumerable — 
some old, some new, some made by 
the noble-minded and made to last, 
some made by the \Teak-minded and 
destined to perish, some lasting from 
age to age, some only from day to 
day — and that a choice must be 
made among them. It is then that 
your sense of humor will assist you. 
You are, you will perceive, upon a 
long journey, and it will seem to you 
ridiculous to change your life and 
discipline your instincts to conform 
to the usages of a single inn by the 
way. You will distinguish the essen- 
tials from the accidents, and deem 
the accidents something meant for 

[26] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

your amusement. The strongest na- 
tures do not need to wait for these 
slow lessons of observation, to be 
got by conning life: their sheer vigor 
makes it impossible for them to con- 
form to fashion or care for times and 
seasons. But the rest of us must 
cultivate knowledge of the world in 
the large, get our offing, reach a 
comparative point of view, before we 
can become with steady confidence 
our own masters and pilots. The 
art of being human begins with the 
practice of being genuine, and follow- 
ing standards of conduct which the 
world has tested. If your life is not 
various and you cannot know the 
best people, who set the standards 
of sincerity, your reading at least 
can be various, and you may look at 
your little circle through the best 

3 [27] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

books, under the guidance of writers 
who have known life and loved the 
truth. 



IV 

A ND then genuineness will bring 
ji serenity — which I take to be an- 
other mark of the right development 
of the true human being, certainly in 
an age passionate and confused as 
this in which we live. Of course se- 
renity does not always go with gen- 
uineness. We must say of Dr. John- 
son that he was genuine, and yet we 
know that the stormy tyrant of the 
Turk's Head Tavern was not serene. 
Carlyle was genuine (though that is 
not quite the first adjective we should 
choose to describe him), but of se- 
renity he allowed cooks and cocks 

[29] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

and every modern and every ancient 
sham to deprive him. Serenity is a 
product, no doubt, of two very dif- 
ferent things, namely, vision and di- 
gestion. Not the eye only, but the 
courses of the blood must be clear, 
if we would find serenity. Our word 
"serene" contains a picture. Its im- 
age is of the calm evening when the 
stars are out and the still night comes 
on; when the dew is on the grass and 
the wind does not stir; when the 
day's work is over, and the evening 
meal, and thought falls clear in the 
quiet hour. It is the hour of reflec- 
tion — and it is human to reflect. 
Who shall contrive to be human 
without this evening hour, which 
drives turmoil out, and gives the soul 
its seasons of self -recollection? Se- 
renity is not a thing to beget in- 

[30] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

action. It only checks excitement 
and uncalculating haste. It does not 
exclude ardor or the heat of battle: 
it keeps ardor from extravagance, 
prevents the battle from becoming a 
mere aimless melee. The great cap- 
tains of the world have been men 
who were calm in the moment of 
crisis; who were calm, too, in the 
long planning which preceded crisis; 
who went into battle with a serenity 
infinitely ominous for those whom 
they attacked. We instinctively as- 
sociate serenity with the highest 
types of power among men, seeing in 
it the poise of knowledge and calm 
vision, that supreme heat and mas- 
tery which is without splutter or 
noise of any kind. The art of power 
in this sort is no doubt learned in 
hours of reflection, by those who are 

[31] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

not born with it. What rebuke of 
aimless excitement there is to be got 
out of a little reflection, when we 
have been inveighing against the 
corruption and decadence of our own 
days, if only we have provided our- 
selves with a little knowledge of 
the past wherewith to balance our 
thought! As bad times as these, or 
any we shall see, have been reformed, 
but not by protests. They have been 
made glorious instead of shameful by 
the men who kept their heads and 
struck with sure self-possession in the 
fight. No age will take hysterical re- 
form. The world is very human, not 
a bit given to adopting virtues for 
the sake of those who merely bemoan 
its vices, and we are most effective 
when we are most calmly in posses- 
t sion of our senses. 

' [32] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

So far is serenity from being a 
thing of slackness or inaction that it 
seems bred, rather, by an equable 
energy, a satisfying activity. It may 
be found in the midst of that alert 
interest in affairs which is, it may be, 
the distinguishing trait of developed 
manhood. You distinguish man from 
the brute by his intelligent curiosity, 
his play of mind beyond the narrow 
field of instinct, his perception of 
cause and effect in matters to him 
indifferent, his appreciation of mo- 
tive and calculation of results. He 
is interested in the world^about him, 
and even in the great universe of 
which it forms a part, not merely as 
a thing he would use, satisfy his 
wants and grow great by, but as a 
field to stretch his mind in, for love 
of journey ings and excursions in the 

[33] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

large realm of thought. Your full- 
bred human being loves a run afield 
with his understanding. With what 
images does he not surround himself 
and store his mind ! With what fond- 
ness does he con travelers' tales and 
credit poets' fancies! With what 
patience does he follow science and 
pore upon old records, and with what 
eagerness does he ask the news of the 
day! No great part of what he 
learns immediately touches his own 
life or the course of his own affairs: 
he is not pursuing a business, but 
satisfying as he can an insatiable 
mind. No doubt the highest form 
of this noble curiosity is that which 
leads us, without self-interest, to look 
abroad upon all the field of man's 
life at home and in society, seeking 
more excellent forms of government, 

[34] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

more righteous ways of labor, more 
elevating forms of art, and which 
makes the greater among us states- 
men, reformers, philanthropists, art- 
ists, critics, men of letters. It is 
certainly human to mind your neigh- 
bor's business as well as your own. 
Gossips are only sociologists upon a 
mean and petty scale. The art of 
being human lifts to a better level 
than that of gossip; it leaves mere 
chatter behind, as too reminiscent of 
a lower stage of existence, and is 
compassed by those whose outlook 
is wide enough to serve for guidance 
and a choosing of ways. 



IUCKILY we are not the first 
J| human beings. We have come 
into a great heritage of interesting 
things, collected and piled all about 
us by the curiosity of past genera- 
tions. And so our interest is select- 
ive. Our education consists in learn- 
ing intelligent choice. Our energies 
do not clash or compete: each is free 
to take his own path to knowledge. 
Each has that choice, which is man's l 
alone, of the life he shall live, and 
finds out first or last that the art in 
living is not only to be genuine and 
one's own master, but also to learn 

[36] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

i 

. mastery in perception and prefer- 
ence. Your true woodsman needs 
not to follow the dusty highway 
through the forest nor search for any 
path, but goes straight from glade to 
glade as if upon an open way, having 
some privy understanding with the 
taller trees, some compass in his 
senses. So there is a subtle craft in 
finding ways for the mind, too. Keep 
but your eyes alert and your ears 
quick, as you move among men and 
among books, and you shall find 
yourself possessed at last of a new 
sense, the sense of the pathfinder. 
Have you never marked the eyes of 
a man who has seen the world he has 
lived in : the eyes of the sea-captain, 
who has watched his life through the 
changes of the heavens; the eyes of 
the huntsman, nature's gossip and 

[37] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

familiar; the eyes of the man of 
affairs, accustomed to command in 
moments of exigency? You are at 
once aware that they are eyes which 
can see. There is something in them 
that you do not find in other eyes, 
x and you have read the life of the 
man when you have divined what it 
is. Let the thing serve as a figure. 
So ought alert interest in the world 
of men and thought to serve each 
one of us that we shall have the 
quick perceiving vision, taking mean- 
ings at a glance, reading suggestions 
as if they were expositions. You 
shall not otherwise get full value of 
your humanity. What good shall it 
do you else that the long generations 
of men which have gone before you 
have filled the world with great store 
of everything that may make you 

[38] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

wise and your life various? Will you 
not take usury of the past, if it may 
be had for the taking? Here is the 
world humanity has made: will you 
take full citizenship in it, or will you 
live in it as dull, as slow to receive, 
as unenfranchised, as the idlers for 
whom civilization has no uses, or the 
deadened toilers, men or beasts, 
whose labor shuts the door on choice? 
That man seems to me a little less 
than human who lives as if our life 
in the world were but just begun, 
thinking only of the things of sense, 
recking nothing of the infinite throng- 
ing and assemblage of affairs the 
great stage over, or of the old wisdom 
that has ruled the world. That is, if 
he have the choice. Great masses of 
our fellow-men are shut out from 
choosing, by reason of absorbing toil, 

[39] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

and it is part of the enlightenment of 
our age that our understandings are 
being opened to the workingman's 
need of a little leisure wherein to 
look about him and clear his vision 
of the dust of the workshop. We 
know that there is a drudgery which 
is inhuman, let it but encompass the 
whole life, with only heavy sleep be- 
tween task and task. We know that 
those who are so bound can have no 
freedom to be men, that their very 
spirits are in bondage. It is part of 
our philanthropy — it should be part 
of our statesmanship — to ease the 
burden as we can, and enfranchise 
those who spend and are spent for 
the sustenance of the race. But what 
shall we say of those who are free 
and yet choose littleness and bond- 
age, or of those who, though they 

[40] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

might see the whole face of society, 
nevertheless choose to spend all a 
life's space poring upon some single 
vice or blemish? I would not for the 
world discredit any sort of philan- 
thropy except the small and churl- 
ish sort which seeks to reform by 
nagging — the sort which exaggerates 
petty vices into great ones, and runs 
atilt against windmills, while every- 
where colossal shams and abuses go 
unexposed, unrebuked. Is it be- 
cause we are better at being common 
scolds than at being wise advisers 
that we prefer little reforms to big 
ones? Are we to allow the poor per- 
sonal habits of other people to absorb 
and quite use up all our fine indigna- 
tion? It will be a bad day for society 
when sentimentalists are encouraged 
to suggest all the measures that shall 

[41] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

be taken for the betterment of the 
race. I, for one, sometimes sigh for 
a generation of "leading people" and 
of good people who shall see things 
steadily and see them whole; who 
shall show a handsome justness and 
a large sanity of view, an opportune 
tolerance for~the details, that happen 
to be awry, in order that they may 
spend their energy, not without self- 
possession, in some generous mission 
which shall make right principles 
shine upon the people's life. They 
would bring with them an age of large 
moralities, a spacious time, a day of 
vision. 

Knowledge has come into the 
world in vain if it is not to emancipate 
those who may have it from narrow- 
ness, censoriousness, fussiness, an in- 
temperate zeal for petty things. It 

[42] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

would be a most pleasant, a truly 
humane world, would we but open 
our ears with a more generous wel- 
come to the clear voices that ring in 
those writings upon life and affairs 
which mankind has chosen to keep. 
Not many splenetic books, not many 
intemperate, not many bigoted, have 
kept men's confidence; and the mind 
that is impatient, or intolerant, or 
hoodwinked, or shut in to a petty 
view shall have no part in carrying 
men forward to a true humanity, 
shall never stand as examples of the 
true humankind. What is truly hu- 
man has always upon it the broad 
light of what is genial, fit to support 
life, cordial, and of a catholic spirit of 
helpfulness. Your true human being 
has eyes and keeps his balance in the 
world; deems nothing uninteresting 

4 [43] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

that comes from life; clarifies his 
vision and gives health to his eyes by 
using them upon things near and 
things far. The brute beast has but 
a single neighborhood, a single, nar- 
row round of existence; the gain of 
being human accrues in the choice of 
change and variety and of experi- 
ence far and wide, with all the world 
for stage — a stage set and appointed 
by this very art of choice — all future 
generations for witnesses and audi- 
ence. When you talk with a man 
who has in his nature and acquire- 
ments that freedom from constraint 
which goes with the full franchise of 
humanity, he turns easily from topic 
to topic; does not fall silent or dull 
when you leave some single field of 
thought such as unwise men make a 
prison of. The men who will not 

[44] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

be broken from a little set of subjects, 
who talk earnestly, hotly, with a 
sort of fierceness, of certain special 
schemes of conduct, and look coldly 
upon everything else, render you in- 
finitely uneasy, as if there were in 
them a force abnormal and which 
rocked toward an upset of the mind; 
but from the man whose interest 
swings from thought to thought with 
the zest and poise and pleasure of 
the old traveler, eager for what is 
new, glad to look again upon what 
is old, you come away with faculties 
warmed and heartened-^-with the 
feeling of having been comrade for 
a little with a genuine human being. 
It is a large world and a round 
world, and men grow human by see- 
ing all its play of force and folly, s 



VI 

1ET no one suppose that effi- 
.J ciency is lost by such breadth 
and catholicity of view. We deceive 
ourselves with instances, look at 
sharp crises in the world's affairs, 
and imagine that intense and narrow 
men have made history for us. Poise, 
balance, a nice and equable exercise 
of force, are not, it is true, the things 
the world ordinarily seeks for or most 
applauds in its heroes. It is apt to 
esteem that man most human who 
has his qualities in a certain exagger- 
ation, whose courage is passionate, 
whose generosity is without deliber- 
ation, whose just action is with- 

[46] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

out premeditation, whose spirit runs 
toward its favorite objects with an 
infectious and reckless ardor, whose 
wisdom is no child of slow prudence. 
We love Achilles more than Diome- 
des, and Ulysses not at all. But 
these are standards left over from a 
ruder state of society: we should 
have passed by this time the Ho- 
meric stage of mind — should have 
heroes suited to our age. Nay, we 
have erected different standards, and 
do make a different choice, when we 
see in any man fulfilment of our 
real ideals. Let a modern instance 
serve as test. Could any man hesi- 
tate to say that Abraham Lincoln 
was more human than William Lloyd 
Garrison? Does not every one know 
that it was the practical Free-Soilers 
who made emancipation possible, 

[47] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

and not the hot, impracticable Aboli- 
tionists; that the country was infi- 
nitely more moved by Lincoln's tem- 
perate sagacity than by any man's 
enthusiasm, instinctively trusted the 
man who saw the whole situation and 
kept his balance, instinctively held 
off from those who refused to see 
more than one thing? We know how 
serviceable the intense and headlong 
agitator was in bringing to their feet 
men fit for action; but we feel un- 
easy while he lives, and vouchsafe 
him our full sympathy only when he 
is dead. We know that the genial 
forces of nature which work daily, 
equably, and without violence are in- 
finitely more serviceable, infinitely 
more admirable, than the rude vio- 
lence of the storm, however necessary 
or excellent the purification it may 

[48] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

have wrought. Should we seek to 
name the most human man among 
those who led the nation to its strug- 
gle with slavery, and yet was no 
statesman, we should, of course, 
name Lowell. We know that his 
humor went further than any man's 
passion toward setting tolerant men 
atingle with the new impulses of the 
day. We naturally hold back from 
those who are intemperate and can 
never stop to smile, and are deeply 
reassured to see a twinkle in a re- 
former's eye. We are glad to see 
earnest men laugh. It, breaks the 
strain. If it be wholesome laughter, 
it dispels all suspicion of spite, and is 
like the gleam of light upon running 
water, lifting sullen shadows, sug- 
gesting clear depths. 

Surely it is this soundness of na- 

[49] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

ture, this broad and genial quality, 
this full-blooded, full-orbed sanity of 
spirit, which gives the men we love 
that wide-eyed sympathy which gives 
hope and power to humanity, which 
gives range to every good quality 
and is so excellent a credential of 
genuine manhood. Let your life and 
your thought be narrow, and your 
sympathy will shrink to a like scale. 
It is a quality which follows the see- 
ing mind afield, which waits on ex- 
perience. It is not a mere sentiment. 
It goes not with pity so much as with 
a penetrative understanding of other 
men's lives and hopes and tempta- 
tions. Ignorance of these things 
makes it worthless. Its best tutors 
are observation and experience, and 
these serve only those who keep clear 
eyes and a wide field of vision. 

[50] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

It is exercise and discipline upon 
such a scale, too, which strengthen, 
which for ordinary men come near 
to creating, that capacity to reason 
upon affairs and to plan for action 
which we always reckon upon finding 
in every man who has studied to 
perfect his native force. This new 
day in which we live cries a challenge 
to us. Steam and electricity have 
reduced nations to neighborhoods; 
have made travel pastime, and news 
a thing for everybody. Cheap print- 
ing has made knowledge a vulgar 
commodity. Our eyes look, almost 
without choice, upon the very world 
itself, and the word "human" is 
filled with a new meaning. Our 
ideals broaden to suit the wide day 
in which we live. We crave, not 
cloistered virtue — it is impossible any 

[51] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

longer to keep to the cloister — but a 
robust spirit that shall take the air 
in the great world, know men in all 
their kinds, choose' its way amid 
the bustle with all self-possession, 
with wise genuineness, in calmness, 
and yet with the quick eye of inter- 
est and the quick pulse of power. It 
is again a day for Shakespeare's 
spirit — a day more various, more ar- 
dent, more provoking to valor and 
every large design, even than "the 
spacious times of great Elizabeth," 
when all the world seemed new; and 
if we cannot find another bard, come 
out of a new Warwickshire, to hold 
once more the mirror up to nature, 
it will not be because the stage is not 
set for him. The time is such an one 
as he might rejoice to look up6n; and 
if we would serve it as it should be 

[52] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

served, we should seek to be human 
after his wide-eyed sort. The seren- 
ity of power; the naturalness that is 
nature's poise and mark of genuine- 
ness; the unsleeping interest in all 
affairs, all fancies, all things believed 
or done; the catholic understanding, 
tolerance, enjoyment, of all classes 
and conditions of men; the conceiv- 
ing imagination, the planning puiv 
pose, the creating thought, the whole- 
some, laughing humor, the quiet 
insight, the universal coinage of the 
brain — are not these the marvelous 
gifts and qualities we mark in Shake- 
speare when we call him the greatest 
among men? And shall not these 
rounded and perfect powers serve us 
as our ideal of what it is to be a fin- 
ished human being? 
We live for our own age — an age 

[53] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

like Shakespeare's, when an old 
world is passing away, a new world 
coming in — an age of new specula- 
tion and every new adventure of the 
mind; a full stage, an intricate plot, 
a universal play of passion, an out- 
come no man can foresee. It is to 
this world, this sweep of action, that 
our understandings must be stretched 
and fitted; it is in this age we 
must show our human quality. We 
must measure ourselves by the task, 
accept the pace set for us, make shift 
to know what we are about. How 
free and liberal should be the scale 
of our sympathy, how catholic our 
understanding of the world in which 
we live, how poised and masterful 
our action in the midst of so great 
affairs ! We should school our ears to 
know the voices that are genuine, 

[54] 



ON BEING HUMAN 

our thought to take the truth when 
it is spoken, our spirits to feel the 
zest of the day. It is within our 
choice to be with mean company or 
with great, to consort with the wise 
or with the foolish, now that the 
great world has spoken to us in the 
literature of all tongues and voices. 
The best selected human nature will 
tell in the making of the future, and 
the art of being human is the art of 
freedom and of force. 



THE END 



